—The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins was an original means of envisioning organisms as temporary, reproductive homes existing solely for the purpose of allowing genetic material to thrive eternally, and from it a new branch of social sciences known as sociobiology emerged.
—Wild wheat and barley live naturally in the area between Eastern Turkey and the Caspian Sea. Some time between 12,000 and 8,000 BC, women must have discovered that by sowing the seeds of these grains they could reduce the amount of time required to gather fruits and vegetables. In so doing they allowed sedentary life in organized cities to emerge.
—Amonhotep IV (1353-1337 BC) changed his name to Akhenaten or Akhenaton, which meant, "Aten is satisfied." Although unable to retain conquered lands like Palestine or succeed very well in military campaigns, this pharaoh's emphasis of the sun god, Aten, allowed a more naturalistic art to flourish.
—Cleopatra (69-30 BC) was the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty which ruled Egypt from 51-30 BC. As one of the strongest women in the ancient world, she was idealized by her people as a reincarnation of Isis.
—Most owls are nocturnal and spend daytime in a quiet and inconspicuous roost. Their activities consist of preening, combing plumage with their claws, screeching, hooting, whistling and snorting
—When owls bob and weave their heads it can appear as if they are exhibiting curiosity concerning the world around them in a humanoid gesture, but in fact they are merely attempting to improve their three dimensional concept of whatever it is that they are looking at. It is no wonder that people, such as they are in readily subscribing to the superstitions of their brothers and sisters in the herd, attributed wisdom, prophecy, and witchcraft to the bird.
—As a successful predator feared by the other birds, lone owls are sometimes mobbed by flocks of rival birds and forced to depart from its roost because of the harassment.
—In keeping with the first two laws of thermodynamics, organisms can neither create nor destroy energy but can only transform it from one form to another.
What she was thinking curled there like an aborted fetus — there being in a corner where she could see a beam of sunshine from a distant window as she stayed hidden behind a large chair, obscure within its shadow — she did not know. She did not even know how she got into her library, or even that she was there.
There, in this fetal position on the floor, she was not as ingenuous as a child for she was more innocent than this. An infant had its cries and smiles to manipulate responses but only she, a non- lachrymose mute, timid and shaking but with eyes open to any compassionate deity who might transcend from the beam, had such ingenuousness. Had someone other than Nathaniel gotten beyond the locked door she would have reached her hands out to the deliverer and the deliverance unreservedly. Once she even slipped into the raiment of memories where a self (presumably herself) interacted with another; and it was from it that, all so briefly, she imagined herself there in human form feeling of Thai silk with Hilda opening the door to find her. Behind the leather of that antique and ostentatious, patriarchal chair that had become her protector and shield she was a human being for the first time, needy, needing to be needed, and enmeshed as a member of the herd. There was even a second where Hilda fused into Rita/Lily and instead of coming to her, it was she, Gabriele, who came into that apartment in Ithaca, embracing her friend in the joy of comforting another being and just being there in the throngs of shared human thought and feeling.